“At the very first step of the way to Calvary, Jesus stumbles and falls. He is down on His knees in the dirt! …The cross which Jesus has fallen under is the cross that most ordinary people fall under…at the beginning of adult life; a material cross, the burden of the material struggle that nearly everyone must shoulder.
Because Christ identifies Himself with us, because He suffers the humiliation of the first fall in us, His love transforms it. The very wound can heal us.
The first fall is the first real self-knowledge. Now we know our weakness, we know our helplessness before the difficulties of life, our total inability to shoulder our responsibilities. We know that we cannot get up by ourselves, we cannot shoulder the burden for the second time by ourselves, we cannot face our own self-contempt or the derision of others, by ourselves. We realize now that we are wholly dependent on Christ, dependent on Him to act in us, to lift Himself up in us and to lift us up in Him. His weakness is our strength.” (Caryll Houslander, The Way of the Cross)
Prayer of Praise: “I adore you, O Christ, and I bless you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”